TEN
‘Look who’s here,’ Peter called from the kitchen into the living room. Clara closed her book and joined her husband at the sink. Holding the curtains back she could see a familiar, well-liked figure coming up their path and beside him came someone else. A stranger.
Clara hurried into the mudroom to open the door, stepping over Lucy, who showed no interest in protecting the home. The only person she barked at was Ruth and that was only because Ruth barked back.
‘Cold enough for you?’ Clara called.
‘Snow’s coming, I hear,’ said Gamache.
Clara smiled as he spoke. She hadn’t seen him for more than a year, since Jane’s murder. She’d sometimes wondered whether, upon seeing Gamache again, some of the old hurt would also come back. Would she for ever associate him with that horrible time? Not just the loss of Jane, but those terrifying minutes trapped in the basement of the old Hadley house? But now, seeing him arrive, all she felt was gladness. And comfort. And she’d forgotten the delight of hearing perfect English, with a slight British accent, coming from a senior S?reté officer. She’d meant to ask him where he’d learned it, but kept forgetting.
Gamache gave Clara a kiss on both cheeks and shook Peter’s hand with affection. ‘May I present Agent Robert Lemieux. He’s been seconded to us from the Cowansville S?reté.’
‘Enchanté,’ said Lemieux.
‘Un plaisir,’ replied Clara.
‘So it was murder,’ said Peter, taking their coats. He’d gone to the hospital with CC and had known long before they’d arrived that she was dead. He’d been on the curling rink watching Mother’s magnificent last shot when he’d looked over to the bleachers and seen the crowd that should have been watching the curlers rising from their seats and watching something else entirely. He’d dropped his broom and raced over.
And there she was, CC de Poitiers, unconscious on the snow. All her muscles taut as though straining against some force.
They’d tried to revive her, had called an ambulance, and had finally concluded it was fastest to take her to the hospital themselves. So they’d piled her into the open back of Billy Williams’s pickup and bumped and jostled along at breakneck speed on the snow-covered back roads, making for Cowansville. He and Olivier and Ruth in the open truck while Billy Williams drove like a maniac. Beside Billy in the cab sat CC’s lump of a husband and their daughter. Staring straight ahead. Silent and unmoving, like snowmen. Peter knew he was being uncharitable, but he couldn’t help being annoyed at the man who did nothing to save his wife while perfect strangers did everything.
Olivier was leaning rhythmically on and off CC’s chest, massaging her heart. Ruth was counting the beats. And Peter drew the short straw. He’d had to breathe into her dead lungs. And they were dead. They all knew it, but still they kept it up as Billy hit every pothole and ice patch between Williamsburg and Cowansville. Kneeling on the frozen metal floor Peter could feel himself lift with each bump and crash down on his knees, bruising them more and more each time. But still he persevered. Not for CC. But because beside him Olivier was suffering the same fate. And holding CC’s head tenderly and firmly was Ruth, also kneeling, her bad hip and old knees slamming into the floor, her voice never wavering as she counted the beats. He’d continued CPR, pressing his warm lips to CC’s increasingly cold and rigid ones, until finally it felt as it had when he was a child and had kissed his ski poles. Just to see. They were so cold it burned, and his lips had refused to come away. He’d finally peeled them off, leaving a thin layer of himself on the poles. His lips bleeding, he’d quickly looked around to make sure no one had seen.
Giving CPR to CC had felt like that. He’d had the impression that if he kept it up eventually his moist lips would solder to hers and he’d be stuck there until he finally ripped them away, leaving part of him for ever on her, a bloody kiss of life.
It was the most repulsive thing he’d ever had to do, all the more so since he’d found her pretty repulsive in life. Death hadn’t improved her.
‘It was murder. Madame de Poitiers was deliberately electrocuted,’ said Gamache.
Clara turned to her husband. ‘You knew the doctors suspected murder.’
‘I heard Dr Lambert talking to a police officer. Wait a minute. Was that you?’ Peter asked Lemieux.
‘Oui, monsieur. I recognize you as well. In fact, I believe we’ve met at a few community events.’
‘It’s certainly possible. Electrocution,’ said Peter thoughtfully. ‘Well, there was a smell. Barbecue.’
‘Do you know, now that you mention it, I remember that as well,’ said Clara with disgust. ‘There was such a commotion it’s hard to remember back.’
‘That’s what I’m going to ask you to do,’ said Gamache, motioning to Lemieux to take notes. Peter led them into the cozy living room and threw a birch log on the fire, the flames grabbing and crackling and leaping as the bark burst into flames. Gamache noticed again the honey pine wide-plank flooring, the mullioned windows looking out onto the village green, the piano and the bookcase, crammed with books and covering one wall. A sofa faced the open hearth and two easy chairs bracketed it. The hassocks in front of the seats were covered with old newspapers and magazines and books, splayed open. The only thing different about the familiar room for Gamache was the huge and exuberantly decorated Christmas tree, giving off a sweet aroma. Clara followed with a tray of tea and biscuits and all four sat round the warm hearth. Outside the sun was setting, and clouds were gathering on the dim horizon.
‘Where would you like to start?’
‘This morning, please. I understand there was a community breakfast?’
‘In the Royal Canadian Legion, on rue Larry in Williamsburg. Peter and I got there early to help set up. It’s a fundraiser for the hospital.’
‘We got there at about seven this morning,’ Peter picked up the story, ‘and were joined by a few other volunteers. Myrna Landers, émilie Longpré, Bea Mayer and Kaye Thompson. We have it down pat by now. Put out the tables and chairs, Clara and I do that, while the others get the coffee going and organize the food.’
‘The truth is, by Boxing Day morning most people aren’t actually all that hungry. They pay ten dollars and get an all-you-can-eat breakfast,’ said Clara. ‘Peter and I do the cooking while Em and Kaye serve up. Kaye’s about two hundred years old and still manages to help but now she finds something she can do sitting down.’
‘Like bossing everyone around,’ said Peter.
‘She never bosses you. That’s my job,’ said Clara. ‘It’s voluntary.’
‘Very civic minded.’ Peter smiled with a long-suffering look.
‘What did the others do?’ Gamache asked. Lemieux was surprised by the question. He’d run out of notebook soon if they kept going into such detail over something that was hours away from the murder. He tried to write smaller.
‘Who’s left?’ Peter turned to Clara. ‘Myrna Landers and Bea Mayer.’
‘Bee?’ Lemieux asked.
‘Her name’s Beatrice, but everyone calls her Bea.’ Peter spelled Beatrice for Lemieux.
‘Actually, everyone calls her Mother,’ said Clara.
‘Why?’ asked Gamache.
‘See if you can figure it out,’ said Clara. Lemieux looked at the chief to see if he was annoyed by her flippant and familiar tone, but he was smiling.
‘What did Myrna and Bea do at the breakfast?’ Gamache asked.
‘They cleaned up between sittings and served coffee and tea,’ said Peter.
‘Oh, yeah,’ said Clara, ‘Mother’s tea. It’s some herbal brew. Disgusting. I don’t mind tea,’ Clara raised her mug to them, ‘even tisane, but I hate to think what goes into the one Mother offers each year. She’s kind of amazing. No one ever takes it and yet she keeps on trying.’
There’s a fine line between noble perseverance and insanity, reflected Gamache. ‘Were Madame de Poitiers and her family there?’
‘I don’t really know,’ said Clara after a moment’s thought. ‘We were cooking the whole time so we didn’t get a chance to look out.’